KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps
Page 89
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
OdT
Ort des Terrors, Benz and Distel (eds.)
OKW
Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (High Command of the Wehrmacht)
ORR
Oberregierungsrat
OStA
Oberstaatsanwalt
OT
Organisation Todt
PAdAA
Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amtes
PMI
Prussian Minister of the Interior
POW
Prisoner of War
Publ.
Published
RaR
Review and Recommendations
RdI
Reichsministerium des Innern (Reich Ministry of the Interior)
RJM
Reichsministerium der Justiz (Reich Ministry of Justice)
RKPA
Reichskriminalpolizeiamt (Reich Criminal Police Office)
RM
Reichsmark
RMi
Reichsminister
RSHA
Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Security Main Office)
SD
Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service)
SED
Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (German Socialist Unity Party)
Sipo
Sicherheitspolizei (Security Police)
Sk
Staatskanzlei (State Chancellery)
SlF
Schutzhaftlagerführer (Camp compound leader)
SMAB
State Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau
SPD
Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (German Social Democratic Party)
StA
Staatsanwaltschaft(en)
StAAm
Staatsarchiv Amberg
StAAu
Staatsarchiv Augsburg
StAL
Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg, Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg
StAMü
Staatsarchiv München
StANü
Staatsarchiv Nürnberg
StB
Standortbefehl
StW
Stadtarchiv Weimar
Texled
Gesellschaft für Textil- und Lederverwertung (Company for Textile and Leather Utilization)
ThHStAW
Thüringisches Hauptsstaatsarchiv, Weimar
TS
Totenkopfstandarten (Death’s Head regiments)
TWC
Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals
USHMM
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
VfZ
Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte
VöB
Völkischer Beobachter
VoMi
Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle (Ethnic German Liason Office)
WG
Werkstatt Geschichte
WL
Wiener Library
WVHA
Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt (SS Business and Administration Main Office)
YIVO
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
YUL
Yale University Library, Archives
YVA
Yad Vashem Archives
ZfG
Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft
See Sources for full bibliographic details.
Prologue
1. Dann, Dachau, quote on 22; Zarusky, “Erschießungen”; Abzug, Inside, 89–92; DaA, DA 20202, F. Sparks, “Dachau and Its Liberation,” March 20, 1984; Greiser, Todesmärsche, 70, 502–503; KZ-Gedenkstätte Dachau, Gedenkbuch, 10; Marcuse, Legacies, 51; Weiß, “Dachau,” 26–27, 31–32; “Dachau Captured by Americans Who Kill Guards, Liberate 32,000,” New York Times, May 1, 1945. See also images in the USHMM photograph collection. The death train had set off on April 7, 1945, from Buchenwald, with 4,500 to 5,000 prisoners on board.
2. Hannah Arendt already made a similar point soon after the Second World War; Brink, Ikonen, 78. More generally, see Weiß, “Dachau”; NCC, ix.
3. DaA, ITS, Vorläufige Ermittlung der Lagerstärke (1971); BArchB, R 2/28350, Chronik der SS-Lageranlage Dachau, March 1, 1938; Zámečník, Dachau, 86–90, 99–105; Neurath, Gesellschaft, 23, 38–41, 44–48; Burkhard, Tanz, 83, 86–89; Steinbacher, Dachau, 90; OdT, vol. 1, 102–104; ibid., vol. 2, 248; Pressac, Krematorien, 8. Thirty of the thirty-four Dachau barracks were used for regular prisoner accommodation. The SS did consider building a crematorium in Dachau in 1937, but did not go ahead with the plan; Comité, Dachau (1978), 166 (my thanks to Dirk Riedel for the reference).
4. Seubert, “‘Vierteljahr,’” 63–68, 89–90, quote on 90; Richardi, Schule, 40–55; Dillon, “Dachau,” 27, 153; Tuchel, Konzentrationslager, 123–25; Zámečník, Dachau, 22–25; KZ-Gedenkstätte Dachau, Gedenkbuch, 9, 13; DaA, 550, M. Grünwiedl, “Dachauer Gefangene erzählen,” summer 1934, 2–3; ibid., 3.286; C. Bastian, “22. März 1933,” in Mitteilungsblatt der Lagergemeinschaft Dachau, April 1965 (thanks to Chris Dillon for this reference); BArchB, R 2/28350, Chronik der SS-Lageranlage Dachau, March 1, 1938. The number of deaths in Dachau excludes some 2,500 survivors who died in the first three months after liberation.
5. DaA, 9438, A. Hübsch, “Insel des Standrechts” (1961), 95.
6. For the term “order of terror,” Sofsky, Ordnung. Sofsky’s study also begins by contrasting Dachau in 1933 and 1945, though in a rather different manner.
7. Figures based on OdT, vols. 2–8, counting camps under the IKL and the WVHA. I have not included the SS special camp Hinzert or the women’s camp Moringen among the main camps.
8. For an early discussion of the centrality of the camps to Nazism, Arendt, Origins, 438.
9. The term “KL” remained the main SS abbreviation for concentration camps throughout the Third Reich. For popular references to “KL,” see The Times, January 24, 1935, NCC, doc. 277. Prisoners also applied the term, though they more commonly used the harsher sounding “KZ,” which became the standard abbreviation in postwar Germany (Kamiński, Konzentrationslager, 51; Kautsky, Teufel, 259; Kogon, SS-Staat, 1946, 4). Still, some survivors (Internationales Lagerkommitee Buchenwald, KL BU) and scholars (Herbert et al., Konzentrationslager) continued to use “KL.” In this book, “KL,” or concentration camp, normally refers to SS camps under the authority of the IKL (from 1934) and WVHA (from 1942); at times, I also use the generic term “camps” to refer to these sites.
10. There were an estimated four hundred and fifty thousand KL survivors in 1945 (chapter 11), in addition to perhaps one hundred thousand prisoners released from the KL between 1933 and 1944. For mortality figures, see table 2, appendix; Piper, Zahl, 143, 167. A small proportion of Jews murdered on arrival in Auschwitz died outside the gas chambers (chapter 9).
A brief note on terminology: The SS divided its prisoners into different categories according to their (presumed) background. These SS designations shaped the prisoner society and inevitably feature in this book. It is worth noting, however, that many prisoners would have described themselves differently. A number of Jewish prisoners, for example, did not see themselves as Jews (at least not before their arrest). Also, a generic SS term like “Russian prisoner” (which I have generally replaced with the broader term “Soviet prisoner”) was often applied indiscriminately by the SS to Ukrainians, Russians, Belarusians, and some Poles.
11. Quote in Hitler speech, January 30, 1941, in Domarus, Reden, vol. 4, 1658. See also Welch, Propaganda, 229–35; Fox, Film, 171–84; Langbein, Menschen, 324; Evans, Third Reich at War, 145.
12. Hitler speech, January 30, 1940, in Domarus, Reden, vol. 3, 1459.
13. Quote in Himmler speech on the Day of the German Police, January 29, 1939, NCC, doc. 274. More generally, see Moore, “‘What Concentration Camps.’”
14. Bauman, “Century.” See also Kotek, Rigoulot, Jahrhunde
rt; Wormser-Migot, L’ère.
15. Smith and Stucki, “Colonial.” See also Sutton, “Reconcentration.”
16. For German colonial camps, Hull, Destruction, 70–90 (who estimates over thirty-three thousand African captives); Kreienbaum, “‘Vernichtungslager.’” On the supposed links to the KL, see especially Madley, “Africa,” quote on 446. More generally, see Zimmerer, “War,” 58–60; Kotek and Rigoulot, Jahrhundert, 32. For criticism of this thesis, see Wachsmann and Goeschel, “Before Auschwitz,” 526–28. For a wider critique of supposed continuities between German colonial violence and Nazi extermination policy, see Gerwarth and Malinowski, “Hannah Arendt’s Ghosts.”
17. Quote in Bell, Völkerrecht, 723. From a German perspective, see Hinz, Gefangen; Stibbe, Civilian Prisoners; Jones, Violence. More generally, see Kramer, “Einleitung,” 17–20, 29–30; Buggeln and Wildt, “Lager,” 168–69.
18. Overy, “Konzentrationslager.” On Spain, see Rodrigo, “Exploitation,” especially page 557. For a visit by Spanish police officials to Sachsenhausen in 1940, Ley and Morsch, Medizin, 390–91. For a visit by Himmler to Franco’s camps in 1940, Preston, Holocaust, 494–95. For concentration camps in Fascist Italy, Guerrazzi, di Sante, “Geschichte.”
19. This is reflected in books on both camp systems; Todorov, Facing; Kamiński, Konzentrationslager; Armanski, Maschinen.
20. Khlevniuk, History, figures on 328; Applebaum, Gulag; Overy, “Konzentrationslager,” 44–50; Kramer, “Einleitung,” 22, 30; Wachsmann, “Comparisons.” For one of the so-called special settlements, see Werth, Cannibal.
21. For a contemporaneous claim, see “Life in a Nazi Concentration Camp,” New York Times Magazine, February 14, 1937. In 1980s Germany, the inflammatory claim by the historian Ernst Nolte that the Gulag had set a precedent for Auschwitz triggered the so-called “historians’ dispute”; Nolte, “Vergangenheit”; Evans, Hitler’s Shadow.
22. Arendt, Origins, 445. For figures on deaths and releases in NKVD camps, see Khlevniuk, History, 308; Snyder, Bloodlands, xiii; Arch Getty et al., “Victims,” 1041; Kramer, “Einleitung,” 24. For other differences between SS and Soviet camps, see Wachsmann, “Comparisons.”
23. Quotes in Aly, “Endlösung,” 274; Ereignismeldung UdSSR Nr. 59, August 21, 1941, Anlage I, “Das Verschickungs- und Verbannungswesen in der UdSSR,” in Boberach, Regimekritik, doc. rk1204. See also the recollections of Rudolf Höss in Broszat, Kommandant, 209.
24. StAMü, Staatsanwaltschaften Nr. 34479/1, Bl. 93–97: Lebenslauf H. Steinbrenner, n.d. (c. late 1940s), Bl. 95; StANü, EE by G. Wiebeck, February 28, 1947, ND: NO-2331, quote on page 5.
25. Klemperer, LTI, 42.
26. Figure correct as of July 2014.
27. For this and the previous paragraph, see Zelizer, Remembering, especially pages 63–154; Reilly, Belsen, 29–33, 55–66; Abzug, Inside, 30 (my thanks to Dan Stone for this reference), 129–40; Frei, “‘Wir waren blind’”; Gallup, Gallup Poll, 472, 504 (the figure of one million dead was the median average of answers); Chamberlin, “Todesmühlen.” For the muted coverage of the liberation of Auschwitz, see Weckel, Bilder, 47; Brink, Ikonen, 25. Quotes in O. White, “Invaders rip veil from Nazi horrors,” Courier-Mail (Brisbane), April 18, 1945, in idem, Conqueror’s Road, 188–91; “Dachau Gives Answer to Why We Fought,” 45th Division News, May 11, 1945. Important early books by prisoners include Beimler, Mörderlager; Seger, Oranienburg; Langhoff, Moorsoldaten. Works by relatives include Mühsam, Leidensweg; Litten, Mutter. My section on the KL in history draws partly on Wachsmann and Caplan, “Introduction,” 2–6.
28. For criticism of these claims, Cesarani and Sundquist, After the Holocaust.
29. Kupfer used the pen name Kupfer-Koberwitz. For his life, see B. Distel, “Vorwort,” in Kupfer-Koberwitz, Tagebücher, 7–15; ibid., 19–30. For the reasons behind his arrest, see also StAL, EL 350 I/Bü 8033, Fragebogen Wiedergutmachung, October 16, 1949; ibid., Erklärung A. Karg, May 23, 1950.
30. Quote in Perz, KZ-Gedenkstätte, 37. See also Niethammer, Antifaschismus, 198–206; Shephard, Daybreak, 92.
31. Jockusch, Collect, 3–10, 165–85. See also Cesarani, “Challenging,” 16–18.
32. For example, see KPD Leipzig, Buchenwald!; Grossmann, Jews, 197.
33. P. Levi, “Note to the Theatre Version of If This Is a Man,” 1966, in Belpoliti, Levi, 24. See also idem, If, 381; idem, Drowned, 138; Sodi, “Memory.” As early as spring 1945, Levi wrote a brief account of medical conditions in Auschwitz, together with a fellow survivor; Levi and de Benedetti, Auschwitz.
34. For some figures, see Taft, Victim, 130–32. A small selection of early survivor accounts includes Nyiszli, Auschwitz (first published in Romania in 1946); Nansen, Day (first published in Norway in 1947); Szmaglewska, Smoke (first published in Poland in 1945); Burney, Dungeon; Millok, A kínok. For early German accounts, Peitsch, “Deutschlands.”
35. Kautsky, Teufel; Frankl, Psycholog.
36. Probably the first history of a single camp is Kraus, Kulka, Továrna; for this pioneering Czech study of Auschwitz, see Van Pelt, Case, 219–23. For poems and fiction, see Borowski, This Way (includes stories first published between 1946 and 1948); Ka-Tzetnik, Sunrise (first published in 1946); Wiechert, Totenwald.
37. Kogon, SS-Staat (1946); Wachsmann, “Introduction,” in Kogon, Theory, xvii. Among the pamphlets was a collection of testimonies by former Buchenwald inmates, published in 1945 with a print run of two hundred thousand copies; KPD Leipzig, Buchenwald! More generally, see Peitsch, “Deutschlands,” 101–102, 139, 204. For widely read survivor accounts elsewhere in Europe, Cesarani, “Challenging,” 20–22.
38. NYPL, Collection Farrar, Straus & Giroux Inc. Records, Box 191, R. Straus, Jr., to R. Gutman, June 21, 1948.
39. Quotes in P. Levi, “Deportees. Anniversary,” Torino XXXI (April 1955), in Belpoliti, Levi, 3–5; DaA, Nr. 27376, E. Kupfer to K. Halle, September 1, 1960. Survivor accounts published in the 1950s include Cohen, Human; Michelet, Rue; Kupfer-Koberwitz, Als Häftling; Antelme, L’espèce. See also the contributions to the Auschwitz Journal (Przegląd Lekarski-Oświęcim). For public disinterest, see, for example, DaA, Nr. 9438, A. Hübsch, “Insel des Standrechts” (1961), 207. For general background, Cesarani, “Introduction,” 1, 5; idem, “Challenging,” 28–30; Diner, Remember, 365–90.
40. Kupfer-Koberwitz, Tagebücher. For the second wave of memoirs, see Waxman, Writing, 116; Cesarani, “Introduction,” 10; Hartewig, “Wolf,” 941. For the reception of Holocaust in Germany, see Hickethier, “Histotainment,” 307–308.
41. Schnabel, Macht; NMGB, Buchenwald (first published in 1959); Maršálek, Mauthausen (first published in 1974); Zámečník, Dachau. See also the influential Langbein, Menschen (first published in 1972); Naujoks, Leben.
42. For a survey, see Reiter, “Dunkelheit.”
43. For example, see Mitscherlich and Mielke, Diktat; Helweg-Larsen et al., Famine. For early references in The Lancet and the British Medical Journal, see Cesarani, “Challenging,” 24. See also the study of the New School for Social Research, abandoned in 1951; Goldstein et al., Individuelles, 10–11.
44. Broszat, “Konzentrationslager”; Pingel, Häftlinge. Other pioneering works include, in chronological order, Kühnrich, KZ-Staat (first published in 1960); Kolb, Bergen-Belsen; Billig, L’Hitlérisme; Wormser-Migot, Le système; Broszat, Studien; Feig, Death Camps.
45. For example, see Dicks, Licensed; des Pres, Survivor.
46. Broszat, “Einleitung.”
47. P. Levi, “Preface to L. Poliakov’s Auschwitz,” 1968, in Belpoliti, Levi, 27–29; Milward, “Review.”
48. Orth, System. For an overview of the state of research in the 1990s, see Herbert et al., Konzentrationslager.
49. A bibliography of German works (ranging from 1945 until 2000) includes over six thousand item
s, most of them published after 1980; Warneke, Konzentrationslager (my thanks to Peter Warneke for a copy).
50. For the last point, see Wachsmann, “Review.” For an assessment of recent academic work, see idem, “Looking.”
51. Megargee, Encyclopedia, vol. I; OdT, vols. 2–8.
52. Quote in Reichel, “Auschwitz,” 331.
53. The reasons for the growth of collective memories of the Holocaust have been examined in many stimulating and controversial studies. For the United States, see Novick, Holocaust.
54. Silbermann and Stoffers, Auschwitz, 205, 211, 213–14.
55. For figures, see chapter 7, appendix (table 2), and Piper, Zahl, 167. For the term “demystify,” see Mazower, “Foucault,” 30.
56. For figures, see chapters 6, 9, 11; Friedländer, Jahre, 692; Piper, Zahl, 167.
57. For this point, see also Langer, Preempting.
58. Quote in Mauriac, “Preface,” x. The argument that the worst crimes in the camps were linked to a specific German mind-set is inherent in Goldhagen, Executioners. For the camps and modernity, see Bauman, “Century”; Kotek and Rigoulot, Jahrhundert.
59. Sofsky, Ordnung.
60. For early criticism of Sofsky’s static approach, see Weisbrod, “Entwicklung,” 349; Tuchel, “Dimensionen,” 373 (n. 12). Of course, sociologists have acknowledged since Max Weber’s time that “ideal types” may never appear in this form in reality; Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, in Directmedia, Max Weber, 1431.
61. Rózsa, “Solange,” 297–99. Rózsa edited her diaries, and added to them, prior to their publication in 1971 in Bucharest.